Charles Walsh: Vow discarded... ticket, too?

Published 3:42 pm, Friday, November 30, 2012

This is the story of how a certain person came to buy a ticket for last Wednesday's $580 million Powerball drawing despite his personal vow never to buy lottery tickets. And it is also the story of the ensuing panic when said lottery ticket went missing.

Second, this personal vow basically boils down to this: Surely there are enough everyday risks to living on Earth -- i.e. earthquakes, wars, famines, pianos falling from skyscrapers, and/or being shot by some jerk who mistakes you for his wife's lover -- to make using up the finite supply of luck we all get at birth by risking two bucks on that lottery dream way not worth it. Therefore, no matter how tempting it is, my firm policy is -- or was -- never to tempt fate by buying lottery tickets. Yes, it's stupid, but most philosophy is.

So you might legitimately ask why I purchased a ticket for Wednesday drawing.

It all started Tuesday when I went to a Madison Avenue convenience store to buy a simple bottle of orange soda. It was the kind of convenience store where a lot of unsavory characters hang around outside while a holdup is progressing inside. But it had a nice parking space right in front it.

Inside, every square inch of space was taken up by life's essentials from cigarettes to toilet paper, and, happily, a large cooler jammed with a vast assortment of refreshments, including a soda called orange soda. I presented the bottle to the clerk who stared out from behind enough layers of clear acrylic to stop a direct hit shot from a 55 millimeter howitzer shell.

After I passed a ten dollar bill through a small slot in the plastic, the clerk looked at me and said: "You want Powerball?"

Right there on the spot I concluded that this was a SIGN.

"OK," I replied.

"What numbers?" the clerk asked.

My mind went blank. The only number I could think of was my Army serial number which, no matter how hard I try, I cannot drive from my skull.

Fortunately the clerk spoke up, "Quick pick, OK?"

Relieved, I readily agreed.

The clerk handed me the change, ticket and a black plastic bag through a little slot in the plastic. I put it in the bag with the soda and left.

[Cut to Wednesday night, an hour before the drawing.]

The ticket! I know I put it right here on the end table. Gone. Everybody knows that a missing ticket WILL be the winning ticket. I had visions of begging a panel of scoffing Powerball officials to just ask the clerk (through the plastic) if I was not the one who bought that missing winning ticket.

We spent a couple of hours of rummaging through waste baskets and making burnt offerings to various saints renowned for finding stuff. Still no ticket. The drawing came and went. I braced myself to hear the winning ticket was sold at a small, recently robbed, convenience store in Bridgeport, Connecticut, but the lucky winner had yet to step forward.

The ticket turned up on the stairs the next morning (thank you, saint whoever you are) and to no one's amazement not one number matched the winning selections. I plan to buy another when the prize hits a cool billion.